Creativity Archives - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Creativity

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

Posted on July 27, 2026
in #Nature Lover, Being in Nature, Creativity, Flourishing, Imagination, Mindfulness and Travealing, Travel
3 Comments

Ashby Ponds under Harvest Moonlight Walking after sunrise and before sunset is popular. But have you walked under a moonless night when the sky is inky black-blue and stars twinkle bright, or when the moon is full? If you have, you know how nighttime walks heighten our senses of hearing and smell, titillate our body and mind. In the dark, the sense of sight diminishes but hearing takes over. Focus on the breath, and the inner stillness feels stronger. Slow your pace, stop, tilt your head upward and gaze at expanse of stars. Wonderment! Awe! You have to walk under the majesty of the night sky to feel it’s serenity and magical spell. It clears the mind, it calms, it makes you forget petty problems that had earlier in the day made you...

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Thursday, July 2 2026

Posted on July 1, 2026
in #Nature Lover, #Reading Poetry, Creativity, Flourishing, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Nonverbal Activities, Sharper Brain after Retirement, Well Being
4 Comments

Framework for Longevity Michael J. Castori What is the secret of Longevity?Invest in bonds Bond with loveParental marital filial people spiritualLove thy neighbor as thyselfNo greater love hath manThan he give up his life for another Bond with natureWith its broad range of animal plant and mineral lifeWith its sun moon stars land sea and airAnd all the creatures thereon and thereinWith its solitude music challenge reverence Bond with a positive mindsetAim high and you won’t hit lowIf things go your way don’t get too highIf things go against you don’t get too low Bond with an upbeat lifestyleEngage in spiritual intellectual social recreational pursuitsThat guarantee health strength and daily breadWoo the positive spurn the negative Bond with existenceAn existence that you deem worthy of your worshipDaily lift up some thought word and deedTo Him to...

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Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Posted on June 29, 2026
in #Reading Poetry, Being in Nature, Creativity, Flourishing, Imagination, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Reading, Walking, Well Being, Writing
2 Comments

I hope the poems I read in the class this month have motivated you to read more poems. Here is a link to mindful poetry for you to explore: https://cih.ucsd.edu/mindfulness/mindful-poetry I thought you may want to know that by the age 85 and older, about a third of people have dementia. Prevention is the most powerful antidote to the illness. You can’t prevent something you cannot see and dementia is one such illness. It increases exponentially after age 65. The mental decline is linked to lifestyle: physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, social isolation, poor sleep, lack of mentally stimulating activities and misuse of alcohol. All opposites of the eight good habits we’ve been reading about and hopefully practicing.  Prevention should start early. Our Ashby Ponds community may be retired but it has not quit...

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Posted on June 8, 2026
in #Reading Poetry, #Story Telling, Creativity, Flourishing, Oral Stories, Originality, Writing
0 Comments

Magnolia Blossoms, Ashby Ponds, 2026 Have you been tinkering with the poem you started in the class? Or perhaps wrote another one? Great job! Few facts about poetry: The craft of writing poems is deliberate, attentive, and it requires absolute concentration. It is simultaneously intuitive and inventive. Poetry emerges like the bursting of a bud. It grows and ripens like fruit.Poetry grows on us. It helps refine our thinking and enhances journaling. You may not want to become a poet but you learn to have a grasp on words and how they have power to stir deep feelings and emotions in you that you may not have experienced before. Reading poetry, like writing in a journal is a private, intimate experience. It stirs self-examination. It helps us deal with paradoxical emotions we don’t understand. Poems...

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Thursday, June 4, 2026

Posted on June 3, 2026
in #Reading Poetry, Attention and Awareness, Creativity, Imagination, Oral Stories, Well Being
2 Comments

As a college student, I admired poets and those who enjoyed reading poems, but rarely did I read poetry myself. Later in life, my younger daughter, Zoon gifted me Pablo Neruda’s Odes to Common Things. I read and reread the poems, and loved each one of those jewels, simple yet stunning.  To understand the structure and methods of writing poetry, I read Edward Hirsch’s How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry and Molly Peacock’s How to Read a Poem and Start a Poetry Circle. Several years went by without my reading another poem. Writing one had not even occurred to me. Between 2007-2011 my website blogs were commentaries on several sacred text, all written in verse including Taoist, Tao-te Ching, Buddhist Dhammapada and Hindu Bhagavad Gita. Each week I copied one chapter from one sacred book from...

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Thursday, February 26, 2026

Posted on February 25, 2026
in Attention and Awareness, Creativity, Flourishing, Originality, Well Being
4 Comments

Snowscape, 1977, Oil on Canvas In the book titled, The Happiness Project: Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, the bestselling author Gretchen Rubin writes that she had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places – a city bus.  “The days are long, but the years are short,” she thought. “Time is passing, and I’m not focusing enough on the things that really matter.” (Money doesn’t buy happiness!) In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her own happiness. Reading her musings, I remembered how many decades ago it occurred to me that I could not change the world but I could only change myself. But how? I reread the world wisdom books,...

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Tuesday, February 17, 2026

Posted on February 16, 2026
in #Awareness, Attention and Awareness, Creativity, Imagination
6 Comments

Paying attention and being aware of what is happening outside is important but not as important as being attentive and self-aware of our inner landscape. Such an attitude leads you to a better understanding of yourself.   Physical changes and impermanence are perpetual. When life’s transient nature registers in our mind we hear the whispers of the primordial questions, “Is that all there is?” “Is there anything permanent?” “What is authentic about my life?” “What is that which truly makes me happy?” In our younger years we pay attention to only our outer appearance, what we see reflected in the mirror. Our awareness is directed outward upon things, people, and places. With age, if we are fortunate, we turn inward towards the things that give meaning to our life, help us find a...

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Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Posted on December 30, 2025
in Creativity, Journaling, Meditation, Spirituality
4 Comments

Nothing spiritually wonderous happened to me until my early fifties. Living with love of my life and our two beautiful and bright daughters, and a decade of teaching behind me I still felt something significant missing in my life. But I did not know what it was. The more I read and wrote, the more yearning I felt for the unknown. What was I searching for that felt absolutely real, true, deeper?  I had discovered that at the core of major world religions is the lesson that to live a life of awareness, joy and contentment is to live simply and fully. A whole life, a holy life. The lesson seemed simple but was difficult to cultivate. Eventually, with enlightened audacity I developed a regimen of five practices with which you...

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Thursday, December 18, 2025

Posted on December 17, 2025
in Creativity, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Nonverbal Activities, Reading, Spirituality, Walking
4 Comments

The final month of our arduous yet calm and creativity stimulating, mind clarifying, heart-warming year-long journey has arrived. I hope the year provided you perspectives on every significant aspect of your life: physical, intellectual, creative, and spiritual. That it underlined how fundamental sitting in stillness, spontaneous writing, walking, reading and creating help you make a strong bond with yourself and strengthen emotional bonds with family and friends. You have almost finished reading, Unblock Your Creative Flow. This was the first rough look or the clearer second read. Starting from the New Year we’ll begin once again to explore the gift of each day as it unfurls, partly as we plan it and partly to let the universe lead us. With pure intentions, determination, patience, make certain that the combined habits of meditation, journaling, reading,...

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Tuesday, 16 December 2025

Posted on December 15, 2025
in Creativity, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Reading, Walking
6 Comments

Meditation, journaling, walking and creative practices are built one day at a time. We come out of the fog of living in the past and see how we are now and could become in the future. We move closer to our true self, witnessing ourselves in meditation, noticing our strengths, and discovering things we can improve while pouring out our thoughts and emotions in our journal.  You’ve come a long way at your own speed. And you continue to mindfully pace your creative and spiritual path. Think about the goals you have reached this year. Thanks to your practice, you are kinder to yourself, compassionate with others, and more forgiving, generous and filled with gratitude. Look around you, take a few deep breaths and be thankful for being HERE NOW. You have...

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